Facing the Challenge of Integrating the Global and the Local: China's intended Legislative Response to Terror

Although terrorism (referred to in Chinese as ’kongbu zhuyi‘) became one of the major concerns in international relations and has been deemed to be a threat to international peace and security since the 11 September attack in the United States, the People’s Republic of China (hereafter, ‘PRC’ or China’) had its own serious concerns with terrorism even before the 11 September attack. When referring to the concept of terrorism, the Chinese government tends to relate it to separatism (‘fenlie zhuyi’) and extremism (‘jiduan zhuyi’), reflecting problems with separatist groups in ethnic minority areas such as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (‘Xinjiang Weiwu’er Zizhiqu’). A serious incident in Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, when a vehicle crashed into crowds of people, resulting in the deaths of 5 people and 40 injured, in 28 October 2013, was characterised by the Chinese government as a terrorist attack carried out by the Turkistan Islamic Party. This incident, as well as a series of violent assaults in 2014, has generated nation-wide concern and discussion not only within the authorities but also among ordinary people. As a result, there is a felt need to adopt legislation specifically focussed on counterterrorism in China. Such legislation is also an obligation for the government of China under the 2009 Convention on Counterterrorism of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which was ratified by China on 28 December 2014. In November 2014, the first draft of a Chinese counterterrorism law was released, seeking public opinions after the first deliberation by the 12th National People’s Congress Standing Committee. It is important to look at the Chinese approach to counterterrorism not only because that approach constitutes part of the international counterterrorism campaign, but also because of China’s ever-growing international importance. Meanwhile, the international counterterrorism campaign has revealed how easily the powers of executive authority can be expanded without proper legal counterbalance, and the general task is how best to achieve a delicate balance between public security and interests on the one hand and individual human rights on the other. This essay assesses the draft of Chinese counterterrorism law in terms of whether, and how, the balance is maintained. The paper is not intended to deal with every aspect of counterterrorism work considered in the draft law but, rather, focusses on the key aspects. I first focus on the definitions of the key terms of terrorism and extremism in the draft (section II). Possible violations of human rights are embedded in the problems of definition, which are discussed in section III. Section IV focuses on the manner in which the executive authorities are supervised when carrying out counterterrorism work. The paper relies heavily on the standards of international human right law, and argues that these standards must be incorporated in the Chinese law on counterterrorism because there is a real obligation to do so. The paper concludes that such obligation has been largely neglected in the draft counterterrorism law despite a general reference to respecting human rights.

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